Tonight is going to be the last time that I will think about you and me. Not that there was ever a "you and me". But I have to admit, for the better part of the last two years that was all I could think about. The possibility. Possibilities? they tend to drive people a little crazy. At least that's my excuse. I still remember the first time I met you. I was not even that impressed. I remember telling the guy who introduced us? "I think I'm taller than him". But somehow, the second time I saw you, I realized you had the nicest smile I had ever seen. That smile made me want to smile back. And I don't even like to smile. More so then, with my god-awful braces. Who likes smiling with a mouth full of metal?
And I really liked the way you fixed your hair. It was cool. You were cool. Listening to the sound of your voice, your accent so different from mine. Talking to you, I felt my limits expanding. Talking to you, smiling into your smile, in that fleeting moment, the realization that there is a whole big, wide world out there? waiting.
That's it. Your smile, your hair, and the way I felt when talking to you? the feeling that my world is suddenly so small and so big... all at once.
I didn't even see you for a year after that. But like every long distance crush, I would think of you from time to time. Wondering where you are and what you were up to. I never really thought I would ever see you again. But I did? in this big wide world; we somehow ended up being real friends. I mean, what were the chances, right? Thinking like that? Well, that's when the possibility of it being more started driving me a little bit crazy.
And so here we are. More than three years later. I don't have braces anymore and you have lost all your hair (shaved your head, instead of fighting a losing battle with hair loss). Not just acquaintances but really good friends.
But some things never change. I'm still slightly taller and your smile is still the nicest smile I have ever seen. Thinking of it now, it still makes we want to smile back. Even though I never like to smile? Even though I am a little sad.
Sad, because all this time, you just never got it. Somehow, the possibility that used to fill me with wonder just didn't have the same effect on you. This realization was not easy to accept, nor is it easy to live with given the fact that I just saw you today and will see you again tomorrow.
But I also know that I am thankful to have met you. Because it's through knowing you that I came to know of possibilities. I realized that, although it IS a big wide world? anything can happen. People, places, things you think that are out of reach today may be right beside you tomorrow. The possibilities are endless? ?
And so I know that one day I will meet him. And he too, based on my uncertain smile, would see the possibilities in me.
Tonight though, for the last time?
I just wish that it could have been you.